


Worlds Apart

by lapsedpacifist



Category: Batman (Comics), Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horizon: Zero Dawn Fusion, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Canon Compliant, Gen, Horizon: Zero Dawn Spoilers, Post-Apocalypse, again only kind of as there doesnt seem to be anything directly contradicting it, kinda since its very post post post and quite nice at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:15:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29010396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapsedpacifist/pseuds/lapsedpacifist
Summary: Damian came to the village to finally meet his father, but instead he found a burned down house and a noisy villager called Richard. It turned out that his father had been cast out for daring to mess with the machines in a way that the tribe’s superstitious inhabitants couldn’t possibly understand, and Wayne had been sentenced to die in the wild.Not that any of that stopped Damian from finding his father, of course.Dick was mostly bewildered and slightly amused by the little Bruce-copy that showed up basically on his doorstep and demanded answers about ‘Wayne!’. But after Damian demonstrated some unexpected aptitude for machine work, Dick decided to help and take him to his father.Who was elbow deep in reprogramming machines, of course.Horizon: Zero Dawn knowledge not really necessary
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	1. Damian

**Author's Note:**

> H:ZD spoilers! Although I am not completely sure from which mission onward, if you don’t know what Project GAIA is, it is definitely too soon for you.

The blackened ruins were mocking Damian.

The stones were still stacked tall enough to imagine what the house used to look like, to give a hint of the magnificent manor he had heard so much about, but not enough to allow for any details. The stones weren’t white any more, far from glittering in the sun with their black and grey coats. The house -- or what was left of it -- stood alone on a raised outcrop, allowing for an undisturbed view across the valley that had surely been the pride of its previous residents.

The garden was destroyed as well, almost like an afterthought as it lay torn down with only a few scattered stones still showing its place and displaying the ruined crops.

He couldn't help himself and petulantly kicked a rock that had rolled in front of his shoe. A small part of him wanted to yell out with the unfairness of it all. He’d spent so much time while travelling imagining what meeting his father would be like. What meeting the man his mother had loved would be like. 

And now, when he’d finally made it -- he was too late.

But he hadn’t been raised to scream into nothingness just because things weren’t going his way. No, he solved problems, not whine about them.

Footsteps behind him alerted him to an approaching stranger and his hand subconsciously gravitated towards his belt. But he resolutely swept it away and rather put on a bored expression as he turned to glare at the newcomer.

It was a young man, tall and lean, but not dressed in hunter gear. Instead his pale skin was decorated in colourful swirls that adorned his cheeks and bare arms. His colourful and loose clothing was cut in fancy patterns that only served to limit movement. He was grinning at Damian with what was definitely a condescending smile, his bright eyes betraying just how fake the smile really was.

“Hey,” the stranger said, “what are you looking for?”

Damian still had a slight accent, but outside of that he spoke their language perfectly.

“I was told this was the place of the Wayne residence,” he said. “But they must have been mistaken.”

“Ah,” the man said, face falling, “I’m afraid they were right. This did use to be the Wayne residence.”

“Used to be?” Damian repeated. He had to be careful with his fact-finding. This was for purely… general knowledge building purpose, of course.

“The house was destroyed when Wayne was cast out.”

Cast out? These people would dare cast his father out?

“Why?” he demanded, harsher than he’d intended. 

“He broke a Rule,” the man simply said. Then tilted his head, considering Damian. “Why are you so interested in this? Did you know him?”

Damian  _ wanted  _ to know him. “No. Where is he now?”

The man shrugged. “Probably dead.”

Damian wanted to hiss at the stranger. How dare he say something like that so callously! “Did you kill him?!”

“No,” the man immediately denied, even going so far as to put up his arms in a feeble attempt to protect himself from Damian’s wrath. “No, but it is hard to see how he could still be alive. He was sent into the wild lands with nothing but the clothes on his back. They didn’t allow him even the customary satchel of belongings.”

“And what crime had he committed?!” He didn’t know much about the ‘wild lands’, but judging by the man’s tone, they were nothing good. “To be sentenced to death for it?” There was a tone of hysteria creeping into his voice, but he couldn’t keep it completely at bay.

“Are you sure you didn’t know Wayne?”

“Answer the question!”

The man narrowed his eyes, but still told him: “He was found working on the machines.”

The tone of voice with which the man said this told Damian a lot about how these people viewed the old technology of the Ancients. His mother did say that they worshipped it and were afraid of it at the same, something Damian had trouble wrapping his mind around -- if they detested it so, why would they offer their prayers to it?

But he didn’t have time for a full-scale interrogation. He was here to meet his father and meet his father he would. The fierce warrior his mother’s words had painted did not need a measly tribe and a fenced gate to protect him. He was still alive. And Damian was going to find him.

The stranger was still looking at him, a mix of suspicion and worry on his face. Damian decided he wasn’t going to get any other useful information out of the man, so he gave a curt nod to appear understanding. “Detestable,” he even said. To the man it probably sounded like Damian disapproved of the crime, but he was actually voicing his opinion of their laws. How close minded of these people to fear simple machines! They hunted them just the same, took them apart to use their parts for their bows, spears and clothing, and daring to do anything outside of that was blasphemy and evil.

To think his father was one of these primitive people! Mother had always made him seem educated and open-minded, but how could such a society shape a man his mother respected? Or, how could such a man persist in this society? How could he remain here? No, he wasn’t staying.

They weren’t worthy of his father and they weren’t worthy of him either. 

“Show me to your leader,” he told the man, but even that simplest of tasks appeared to pose difficulty to the simple man as he scratched his neck and looked at everything but Damian’s face.

Finally, he sighed and said: “She’s not here right now.”

“Then show me where to wait for her.”

“She won’t be back for at least a week.”

“Then show me to her replacement!” Must he really provide every possible course of action?

“He is also very busy at the moment.” The man then paused, considering something. “He’s… Wayne was a very prominent resident, and his expulsion has left much to be done around here.”

Expulsion. They treated the possible death of a man with such irreverence!

And now pretending like they were the ones most affected by it. What appalling people.

He did not want to stay here a moment longer than necessary.

"Who can tell me more about Wayne?" he demanded.

The man frowned: "Why do you want to know? You said you didn't know him."

"Just answer my questions; why do you need to interrogate me in turn?"

"Hey, you started with the interrogation, is it then not fair for me to do the same?"

Damian glared at the infuriating man with his best glower, but the man refused to be cowed.

"I suppose I could tell you something," the man finally faltered. "But don't you want to step away? I can hardly imagine the rubble to be the best place for such a talk."

He looked around the ruins again. Something gleaned in the bright sun, vaguely metal-like but much shinier than any other object he had seen in the village, buried among the wet soot and ash and other unburned wooden remains. “No,” he decided, “here is fine.”

“Don’t wanna leave with a random stranger, I can respect that,” the man said.

What a joke -- did the man seriously think he presented any sort of threat to Damian? His clothing was completely useless for any sort of fighting, he was not wearing any weapons, and his skin was completely free of scars. He carried himself neither as a warrior nor a hunter. He would sooner injure himself than even touch Damian.

“Well?” he asked. “What do you know about Wayne? You said he was well-known, that means that I can easily find somebody else if you are unwilling.”

That suggestion seemed to almost scare the man, as his eyes went wide and he first reached towards Damian and then hastily pulled his hand back. “No,” he half yelled, then repeated, softer this time: “No, stay. Like I said, Wayne is now an outcast. Not everyone will take it as nicely if you demand to speak about him.”

Damian might have looked young, but he was far from a helpless child, and he let the man know that.

The man only shrugged: “You do seem like a strong kid, but what can you do against an armed hunter? Besides, I’m talking, no need to run away.”

And now Damian definitely couldn’t fulfil his threat to leave. “I am not afraid,” he sneered. “Now talk. What do you know about Wayne?”

“He was rather powerful. His parents left him a large merchant empire and a medical operation, and he started a successful hunter group on his own.”

“I already knew all of that. I want to know about… About what he did to the machines that it was necessary to run him out. You hunt machines for parts all the time, do you not?”

“But that hunt is the same as the hunting for food we do. They behave almost like animals, look almost like animals -- the only difference is that they are made out of metal and spirit, and are far more deadly.”

“I know this too, do you only regurgitate well-known facts or are you actually going to tell me something useful?”

The man frowned: “Well, I don’t know what you already know. But alright -- Wayne was found collecting special machine parts. The useless ones, the strange ones. And he had whole rooms of these -- they followed him to a cave once, and he had a whole workshop there, taking apart these machines and… Well, I don’t really believe that last part they mentioned, because who would be crazy enough to do it?”

Damian ignored the man’s awkward chuckle: “Tell me.”

“They said… they said he was  _ building  _ new ones. New machines. Equipping them with weaponry, giving them energy and even a life force so that they could move. On their own!”

How interesting. That his father didn’t partake in the senseless superstition was one thing, but that he was actively working on machines was quite another. This was definitely more like the man his mother had fallen in love with, even someone Damian could respect. He was quite an adept mechanic and engineer himself, his mother priding herself on knowing a myriad of disciplines. Nothing was too forbidden for her, too scary or terrifying. Knowledge was power, and the machines were worth studying just like anything else.

Not only for that advantage superior knowledge always gave them.

“And that was against the law?”

“Where are you from that you don’t know of the rules? You don’t look Banuk.”

“Just tell me.”

“Handling any sort of technology is forbidden.

“Why?”

The man seemed confused: “What do you mean, why? It just is.”

“For what reason?”

“I don’t--”

“Or do you just blindly follow? Do, but not understand why or what? How predictable.”

The man was now anxiously looking around, even as his shoulders lifted and his head shrunk between them. “Watch your words,” he warned, “you can’t talk like that here.”

“Or what? Will a machine come for me in the night?” Damian mocked. “Or will you cast me out too, leave me to die because of mere words?”

The man stared at Damian with a perplexed expression on his face. Over his shoulder Damian spotted two approaching figures, an elder man and woman dressed far more appropriately for the wild they currently inhabited.

“That’s not--” the man began to say, when the elder pair reached them and the woman called out: “Richard!”

The man -- Richard -- spun around, quickly taking a step back from the elder pair as well as Damian, who heard him curse under his breath. “Sorry,” Richard immediately said, “I wasn’t--”

But the elder man already advanced on him, a spear in one hand as he hit Richard with the other, making him stagger even farther back. “You aren’t allowed to be here! And yet, this is the third--”

“Fourth,” the woman interrupted.

“Fourth time we find you skulking around the Wayne residence! Are you deaf as well as dumb?!”

“I didn’t mean to,” Richard almost begged, “I’m sorry, I just saw this boy standing here--”

“And thought it a good enough excuse?! You’re coming with me to the chieftain, right now.”

The elder man dragged a protesting Richard away and the woman turned to Damian. “Why are you here?” she asked.

“My mother is a business associate of Wayne,” Damian smoothly explained, “although I suppose that will be an ex-associate as soon as I return with the news.”

The woman seemed appeased by this. “I always thought Wayne was shifty. His parents, lovely people, but ever since their death -- there was just something wrong with that man. And now this! I don’t know what Richard told him, but you shouldn’t listen to that boy. He was far too attached to Wayne, I wouldn’t be surprised if they even worked together. But of course nobody even so much as hinted at Richard’s involvement. Well, I guess when you can dance as well as he can and do all sorts of other moves, with that pretty face of his, you can damn well do anything. Especially if so many of those private dances are all for the chieftain.”

She was definitely the type of a person that didn’t need two people to hold a conversation. Damian would normally have interrupted her word-flow with a well-placed insult, but he found himself almost fascinated by the amount of information she was so willing to share with an outsider. So he assumed the most pleasing face possible and settled in to listen.

* * *

New plan: go into the Wildlands (proper name) and find father. As quickly as possible, because word of his arrival had already spread around and it was only a matter of time before his grandfather’s forces found him.

The one eyed, white haired replacement of the chieftain while she was on her week long journey was both slightly creepy and plenty dangerous, and Damian was content to stay in his presence as little as possible.

He told the tribe that he would be heading back to his mother and indicated her place of residence as somewhere over the Wildlands, providing himself with a perfect excuse to venture close to them. He also turned down their offer of a mount, telling them that his people travelled on foot. Which was true, but their primary mode of transportation were still machine mounts, something he was sure wouldn’t go over well with this particular group of people.

But he was now close to finding his father, closer than ever, and a strange sense of elation overcame him as he finally left the damned village and, according to a rather poorly made map, made his way towards the Wildlands.

* * *

Damian was debating between camping for the night or moving on. The lights the machines gave off were a good enough warning, especially in the dark, and the largest flesh animals around were non threatening boars. 

Not that he was tired. He wasn’t tired, not from simply walking, of course not! Just. Maybe it would be better to be at his best when meeting father? Fully rested and groomed and all. First impressions were incredibly important.

So finding a good camping spot it was. The crude map was not detailed enough to provide any relief information, so he trusted his ears and started walking away from the quiet hum of a river. He managed to take only a few steps when he realised he was also listening to something else, a number of something else's’ that was steadily growing louder -- approaching him.

He stopped just for a moment to focus on the sound, and didn’t need to think about it more. The sound of hoof beats against stone and ground, a number of them. Even some lights could already be seen, some from the machine mounts and some from light beams that jumped around as if searching… for… somebody…

“There!”

A loud yell broke Damian out of deliberation. Bandits, he realised in shock. His grandfather had found him, and these people were here to take Damian back to him.

It was not going to happen.

But there were a lot of them. He could easily take on them all individually and even in some pairs, but he didn’t kid himself -- overestimation of your own capabilities was deadly. Not that death was quite what awaited him should he fail here; it was something much worse.

So, fight or flight? He couldn’t beat all of them, and running on foot while they chased him with mounts was idiotic.

Hiding was the undesirable third option, but also the only logical solution, and he scurried up into the trees, hoping to hide in the darkness.

The bandits reached his location in no time, pulling their rides to a stop.

“Where’d he go?”

“Weren’t you tracking him?!”

“Where is he!”

Damian pressed himself closer to the tree and hoped that he was high enough and that they didn’t think to look up.

They did. The bright beams came a moment later, and already they were focusing on Damian.

“There he is!”

One of the men prepared to launch a spear at Damian, who needed a second to realise what was actually happening. Did they not need him alive? He couldn’t really move, and avoiding the spear was going to be a--

Just before the man could throw the spear, something rushed out of the canopy and collided with him, throwing them both off the machine.

The bandits immediately began to yell between themselves, only a few still keeping their eyes on Damian as most jumped off to help their friend.

Whoever was fighting the bandit was doing alright, although some of the moves were slightly flashy. He -- and it was a man, as evident by his tight outfit that, unlike what most people wore, allowed for a lot of movement at the expense of protection -- had already knocked out or killed the first bandit and was now fending off three more, now not doing so well any more.

Then Damian realised he was focusing on the fight and not on his escape, and quickly grabbed some branches to climb even farther up.

But.

He spared another look for the man, and with shock finally noticed that he knew him. It was Richard! But gone were the coloured swirls, gone were the flashy clothes -- the man was wearing a shoulder guard, gloves and a belt, a picture of pure functionality and the exact opposite to what Damian had seen him wear before.

That woman had said that Richard was a good friend of his fathers.

Damian made a decision and launched himself downwards, knocking two bandits off their mounts and landing only slightly awkwardly before throwing himself into the fight.

* * *

His estimation had been correct, and even with two fighters they were still losing. So Damian made an executive decision.

The live mounts that had not been tied down had dispersed long ago, too afraid to stay close. The machine mounts had not.

One in particular -- with two big horns on each side of the head -- stood quite close to Damian, having remained completely still during the battle, clearly not programmed for any sort of fighting. Damian briefly considered Richard’s reaction to seeing such  _ blasphemy _ but decided to chance it and pulled his specialised glove from his belt.

It covered only his hand, already stopping at his wrist, and it was pulsing with blue light as he pressed it over the mount’s head and the port stationed there. The hologram display that popped up offered him a selection of programs and he decided for the fastest one. The override took mere seconds and the only indication that it worked was the brief blink of the mounts eyes.

Richard was staring at him with his eyes wide open, almost getting hit, but Damian didn’t have time to explain. He pushed off the ground and sat himself on the mount, offering his hand to Richard. “Hurry!” he yelled. 

“But--” Richard tried to protest just as an arrow narrowly missed his shoulder and a knife slashed past his hip. He stopped protesting and vaulted himself behind Damian, the mount already moving.

Behind them they heard the sounds of the rest of the bandits jumping on their own animals and machines to begin the pursuit.

Damian didn’t know the area very well, mostly working off of the map he had memorised, but it was far from accurate. So it was with slight relief that he felt Richard pull on his shirt and shout: “Take a right!”

He was capable enough to recognise Richard’s superior knowledge of their surroundings as well as his unwillingness to be captured, so he steered the mount to the right when they reached the fork in the road.

“Do you have a plan?” he yelled back.

“Yes!” was Richard’s response. “Here, go left!”

Now it was Damian that faltered, seeing as how Richard’s instructions led them into the river.

“It’s shallow!” the man yelled, like he’d been reading Damian’s mind. So Damian stopped hesitating and forced the mount into the river.

It was shallow, just like Richard had said, and they crossed it in a couple of jumps. The constant streams of arrows and other projectiles being shot at them from behind faltered as well as the bandits reached the river, but quickly picked up as they followed.

“Go for the herd,” Richard now instructed him, pointing at a large herd of machines grazing the ground not too far ahead of them.

“We’ll be trapped,” Damian countered. Sure, he wasn’t afraid of mere machines, but between them and the bandits on their back.

“Trust me!”

That was a ridiculous proposition. “Why?!”

“I don’t wanna die either!”

Alright, that made it slightly less ridiculous, and it wasn’t as if they had much choice. Their mount was faltering, the numerous hits it took during the short chase impairing its functionality. A little longer and it would stop altogether, delivering Damian straight into the hands of the bandits.

So he pushed the mount towards the herd as the yelling behind them intensified, the bandits figuring out their plan.

The machines began lifting their heads, alerted by the commotion heading straight for them. Their peaceful blue light that shone out of their eyes turned to yellow as they became alarmed by the rapidly approaching people. A few turned tail and ran, but more dug in their hooves as they lowered their heads and got ready to rush them back.

“When I say jump, jump,” Richard yelled, and Damian prepared to obey. He had listened to the man so far, it would be only prudent to continue.

And then Richard was yelling Jump! and they went flying off their mount even as it got hit both by thrown spears from behind and a machine beast from the front, instantly mangling it to bits.

Richard pulled Damian into an embrace, shielding him with his body as he slowly dragged them away from the middle of the clash between machines and bandits, somehow managing to avoid being trampled or shot.

As soon as they reached the edge of the clearing on which the bloody battle continued, Richard stood up and pulled Damian up behind him.

“C’mon,” he urged Damian, “before they notice.”

A few bandits had already pulled out of combat and began looking around, so they hunched forward and quietly escaped their line of sight.

* * *

Finally far away enough to not even hear the sounds of the battle any more, Richard leading them both to a place unknown, Damian demanded answers. 

“Why did you follow me?”

Richard sighed: “Those people didn’t lie, I am close to Bruce. And you… Damian, you really do look just like him. I don’t know how others didn’t see it.”

Damian refused to preen under the man’s words, rather focusing on another part: “You are then sure he is still alive?”

“Alive? Oh, definitely. It would take much more than what Wildlands can possibly throw at him to keep Bruce down.”

“Then I demand to see him! I am his son, just as you have said, and I want to see him!”

Richard stopped under what seemed like an unclimbable rock cliff with a waterfall on one end and more forest on the other. He titled his head and smiled: “Well, where did you think we were going?”

The moon chose just the right moment to shine through the thin clouds, illuminating the smooth rock face of the cliff. Or what Damian had assumed to be mere smooth rock. A triangular shape emerged from the darkness, rocks and metal combining to produce a sophisticated design of an enormous triangle carved into the cliff from the ground up. A line bisected it from the top to the middle of the bottom, running perpendicular to the ground. Now that he knew what to look at, Damian could even spot the faint blue lighting emanating from the crack.

“What is that?” he whispered to Richard, suddenly concerned with their surroundings again.

He had heard about something similar, a doorway that his mother had visited at one point. And she had worked hard to instil fear of them into Damian, as her visit had left her scared physically and emotionally. She said that these doors led to a palace that built the machines, but only the angry ones, the armoured ones that took special pride in hunting people. 

Damian felt nowhere strong enough to take on the horrors his mother had recalled encountering at one of these places.

Richard had probably misunderstood his fear as more empty superstition, as he merely patted Damian’s shoulder.

“It’s fine,” he said, “just watch.”

And the foolish man stepped right in front of the giant gate, the dim blue lights instantly intensifying until they were sending out a wide beam of light.

A monotone voice of strange nature sounded all around them: “Hold for identiscan.”

The beam, pointed at the floor, slowly began to rise and take in Richard’s whole body. A hologram sprang up next to his face, flicking between pictures of different people faster than an eye could follow. Having finally taken in his whole body, the beam shut off.

For a moment, nothing happened. Damian held his breath.

The blue light then spread all over the door as the strange voice continued: “Genetic identity confirmed. Entry authorised. Greetings, Dr Grayson. You are cleared to proceed.”

The plates began to move and soon Damian and Richard were both almost blinded by the light emanating from the now free entrance.

Richard took a step forward, then turned to Damian: “Coming?”

Damian briefly considered his mother’s warnings and contemplated refusing.

But only very briefly.

“Of course,” he said and followed Richard.


	2. Dick

The usual welcoming messages played out as the kid followed Dick into the facility, Dick still unable to figure out how to turn them off. The metal grates creaked under their feet as they made their way towards the personal rooms where Dick hoped to find Bruce.

Only hoped, because he knew what a workaholic Bruce was, and how optional sleeping was for him.

Now that they were inside, he could finally pull out his focus and affix it back onto his temple. The bright neon holograms sprang into life all around him, giving the previously dead place a much better look.

He glanced at Damian who was unable to hide the wonder with which he looked at everything around him, Ancient technology as far as the eye could see and nothing else filling the place. He had been happy to see Damian’s crude glove contraption, a clear sign the kid was far from afraid of simple technology and was even experimenting with it. So similar to Bruce without ever even seeing him before.

But also, Bruce had a kid? It had been quite a shock, seeing the kid standing in front of Wayne ruins. The conversation he had with him only revealed so much, and Dick was very glad he trusted his instincts and followed the kid into the Wildlands.

And now he got to watch Bruce’s expression to first seeing Damian. It was bound to be amusing.

“What is Aether?” Damian asked as they neared the personal quarters and Dick tried to remember where he could’ve heard it, but -- ah, the welcoming messages. Still the same message of ‘Welcome to AETHER Aviary-5’ played at the entrance as it always has.

He really should shut that down. But it had never been the priority and they definitely never had the time for anything that wasn’t the priority.

“It’s… I’ll explain soon. Let’s find Bruce first, okay?”

The hallways were as clean as they could manage to keep them, which meant not very. Not that either much cared for the tidiness of anything that wasn’t their main workshop and Dick felt only slightly bad at seeing Damian scoff at the dust, rubble, and moss that covered so much.

“Through here,” he indicated, opening the door to Bruce’s personal quarters. They were one of the exceptions to the mess, Bruce spending too little time in them to truly mess them up. The bed was made and the night stand next to it bare of everything but a hologram clock. The table was empty as well, the chairs placed at their spots next to it. If it weren’t for the small picture on the wall above the bed, one wouldn’t be able to guess this was a room of someone living at all.

“There is no one here,” Damian unhelpfully pointed out.

“I know. It looks like he’s still in the workshop. He never knows when to stop working.”

“Diligent. Commendable.”

The workshop they had set up wasn’t far from their personal quarters. They had repurposed a laboratory and part of the giant dining hall, the best choice out of all the other rooms. They couldn’t use the main assembly line for it as it was far too big for them, and Dick prohibited Bruce from ruining any of the recreational facilities. His argument that they could become stuck down there for who knows how long was only partially his reason; but simply telling Bruce that he wanted to keep them for fun wouldn’t have been enough.

The workshop was brightly lit and they could hear a rhythmic thumping emanating from it as they approached, a clear sign of Bruce being hard at work.

The man was bent over a table, staring at a holographic image of the new machine core Dick had managed to extract from a downed Stormbird. Next to him the newly awakened fox-like machine was strapped into a harness and galloping over a fast spinning belt, the thumping coming from its paws slapping the floor.

“Dick,” Bruce said without looking up, “I thought I told you it was too dangerous for you to come here right now.”

“You did, but--”

“And I know I told you I have more than enough food left. Besides, the auxiliary entrance is still functional, which you know full well.”

“I do, but--”

“I don’t think I need to remind you again how dangerous it is for you and for me if you are spotted anywhere close to--”

“Bruce!” Dick finally yelled. “Would you just look at me?”

Bruce finally straightened up and turned around, clearly ready to continue his tirade, when his eyes landed on Damian standing next to Dick.

“What the hell, Dick?!” he immediately growled. “How dare you--”

Dick didn’t have to look at Damian to imagine his crestfallen face. “Before you say something you will forever regret,” he said, “maybe take a good long look at him and tell me who he reminds you of.”

Bruce frowned but finally shut up, realising that Dick was very serious indeed. He tilted his head, staring at Damian. “He does remind me of…” he trailed off, clearly unable to remember.

“You knew my mother,” the kid prompted him. “Talia Al Ghul.”

And now Bruce’s eyes went wide as he very quickly realised what was going on. “How old are you?” he whispered.

“Eleven.”

“Eleven…”

Then Bruce was flying forward, stopping just before Damian and the dagger Damian immediately pulled out at the sudden assault. 

“You are my son,” he half stated, half asked.

Damian gave one slow nod.

“I can’t believe Talia didn’t tell me about you,” Bruce muttered before finally laying a hand onto Damian’s shoulder. “I am your father, Damian.”

Damian only huffed, but Dick knew that had been more for Bruce’s sake than Damian’s. Still, he couldn’t keep a wide smile off of his face, wishing only he had had a camera with him to commemorate the occasion of Bruce being completely flabbergasted by a simple child.

* * *

Bruce and Damian were in the kitchen, preparing food -- or, in Bruce’s case, simply eating the pre-prepared food. The man was a genius, but doing anything with food beyond eating it was so above him that it wasn’t even funny. Dick had soon learned that he either cooked and prepared his own meals or suffered Bruce’s half burned, half uncooked monstrosities.

Dick took the few minutes of quiet to check in on the Aviary’s status, noting the perimeter sensor reports and the newly installed cameras. Not that he didn’t trust Bruce to tell him if something had happened, but he liked doing it on his own.

The next were the factory reports from the lower level. Ever since AETHER had successfully fought off the HADES attempt at takeover, Dick liked to check in on the machine-building process to see whether everything was going as it should and that nothing malicious had managed to quietly slip into the production line. But everything was running as expected, and end-of-line status checks of the finished machines all came back green. 

The last was a quick look into AETHER’s new project, the new type of a mechanical bird it was developing. It was to be far smaller than anything flying right now, even less than two metres in length -- apparently close in size to the real, flesh birds that populated Earth so long ago before the catastrophe, only a bit bigger than those flesh ‘owls’ Dick heard inhabited the snow covered Banuk areas in the north, in the Cut. 

AETHER had slight problems fitting everything it wanted into such a small shape while still insisting that the small form was crucial, but never providing the reason why. Then it went on to request Dr Grayson’s assistance, overjoyed at having its Alpha there, never even questioning how the man could be alive after almost a millenia. This definitely cemented Dick and Bruce’s opinion that the AI had recently gone bonkers, and Dick had to keep finding inventive ways to excuse himself without offending the AI.

He closed the hologram when he heard Damian and Bruce approaching, swirling in his chair to look at them.

“Yo,” he said, if only to watch the same frowns adorn both their faces. “I hope you liked your brepper.”

Twin stares of bafflement.

“Breakfast and supper? No? What about sufast. Or breakper. I actually like that one!”

Twin looks of disgust. Man, this was fun.

“You have yet to explain anything to me,” Damian said with the slightest pout. “What is this place? What are you doing? Why were you now waving your hands in the air? Why does this place know you? Why does--”

“Breathe,” Dick laughed, “please, I said we would answer and we will, but you need to breathe. One thing at a time. Hm. I actually have an idea. B, could you get a Focus for Damian?”

Bruce didn’t argue, simply nodded and then escaped the room with such speed that Dick had to wonder what went down between those two during their brief -- he checked the time -- alright, during their half an hour long meal.

“A focus?” Damian asked.

Dick tapped the little silver triangle he had affixed to his temple. “A Focus,” he repeated. “It lets you… well, it helps you. It lets you use most of the devices here, and lets you see some holograms that aren’t projected just for every human eye. That’s why I was waving in the air before, I was looking at a hologram that you couldn’t see. It also gives information -- okay, some information -- about things. And we can communicate between ourselves with them.”

He watched the amazed look slowly spread on the kid’s face. “Ancient’s made it, just like they made everything else around here. I don’t know how much B has told you--”

“Nothing,” the kid sulkily replied, “he only wanted to know about mother. And grandfather.”

Judging by the tone, both were very sore topics for the kid so Dick decided to interrogate Bruce later and now focus (pun very much intended) on what Damian wanted to know. 

“Ah, that’s alright. Well, you heard the system -- that’s who’s controlling this place, by the way -- call this an Aviary. This is because it produces the bird machines.”

“Birds? You mean Glinthawks?”

“As well as Stormbirds.”

More amazement. “But Stormbirds are giant!”

“Wingspan of twenty two meters, I know,” Dick nodded. He had memorised all the specifications long ago. “But someone has to build them, and that someone is this place.”

Bruce should have been back by now, but if he wanted to have a nervous breakdown in his room over the unexpected son Dick was prepared to offer some leniency.

“AETHER is the system that builds them. It’s a… thinking machine, of sorts.”

“Then it must be an incredibly big machine, to be able to build and control Stormbirds,” Damian wondered, his eyes already staring past Dick as he apparently considered this.

“Not exactly,” Dick backtracked, “it’s more of a spirit, in the way that it doesn’t really have a body but rather inhabits this entire building. And some others.”

“In more places than one?”

“Well, you heard it -- it called this place Aviary number five. It stands to reason that there’s at least four others, and probably even more. And AETHER controls all of them, ordering them to produce birds.”

“But why?”

Ah, the crux of the problem. “Good question,” Dick said. “AETHER is apparently tasked with making the air clean and not poisonous any longer. And it’s doing that with the birds. Take Stormbirds -- their lighting apparently makes air better. It is also incredibly deadly, but originally, it was meant to make the air better.”

Damian seemed to be thinking about it. “Does that mean that all the machines are produced at such places?”

“Probably,” Dick agreed. “I know of two more places that look similar to this, but I haven’t been able to gain access yet.”

“But why--” Damian began, now finally interrupted by the return of his father.

“Here,” Bruce said, handing Damian a polished focus. Dick rolled his eyes and took it from B’s hands to gently affix it onto Damian’s temple.

“You might want to sit down for this,” he warned the kid, but Damian stubbornly remained standing. “Alright,” Dick shrugged and with a gentle tap turned it on.

* * *

Damian did not, unlike Dick, fall onto his butt in wonder, but he had spent two hours just wandering the hallways and interacting with the newly revealed holograms, messages, and programs. Dick had instructed AETHER beforehand to limit Damian’s access to prevent him from stumbling onto anything integral to their operations, but otherwise left him to explore on his own.

“You have a child,” he instead told Bruce as he sat down on the workbench, blatantly ignoring Bruce’s signals to leave him alone to sulk over some new blueprints. “An actual child!”

“I didn’t know I had one until now,” Bruce tried to evade.

“I’m not angry, I’m just… Wow. What are you planning on doing with him?”

Now Bruce looked even more uncomfortable. “I can’t send him back,” he said. “He’s being hunted by his grandfather for some sort of a ritual. Talia sent him to me to protect him, and I--”

“You want to protect him but at the same time you think it will be even more dangerous here.”

Bruce grabbed Dick’s thigh to look into his eyes as if to relay the gravitas of the issue: “Dick, the tribe wants me dead.”

Dick was having none of it. “Wanted,” he chirped. “They wanted you dead. They think you already are by now.”

“That’s not the point. As soon as they find out who he’s related to, they’ll… This is no place for him.”

“Unlike what, constantly running from bandits and bounty hunters? That’s even worse, B.”

“But constantly hiding with me? In this… place?”

Dick laughed at that. “Have you not asked him anything about himself? B, he _loves_ technology! His upbringing was much, much different than what we’re used to in the tribe. Has he already shown you the glove he’d build? It overrode a mount’s programming in less than half a minute! And you would propose to banish him where exactly?”

“But he is not--”

“Did you or did you not see him practically _skip_ out of here after we gave him that Focus?”

Bruce stubbornly remained silent and Dick took a deep breath to calm himself. “Listen,” he said, exuding the patience he didn’t really possess, “Damian is staying and that’s final.”

Before Bruce could argue, Dick lifted his hand: “Nope. I said so and so it is. Unless you _want_ me to tell AETHER you got on my bad side?”

“If that thing vents my room when I’m sleeping one more time, I swear I’ll rip out its… something,” Bruce shivered, finishing rather lamely as he realised that just about any threat he could make would turn out badly for him. “Dick, I’m just trying to look out for him. If… if I hadn’t taken you in, then you wouldn’t--”

“Stop right there,” Dick demanded, “and do not even think of finishing that sentence. B, I am a clone built specifically for one purpose, I think, and you know I would have ended up here anyways. But what would then happen to me is unknown. Probably nothing good. I know you hate thinking about it, but you saved me. You really did.”

“No,” Bruce said, still staring right at Dick, “you saved me. And not only by sheltering me here. Dick, I--”

“Father!” suddenly blared in both their ears and they winced at the sudden intrusion. Then Bruce tapped his Focus to answer. “I’m here,” he said, “no need to yell.”

“Father, there is a, a humanoid machine here!”

“Oh, that’s just @lfred,” Dick laughed. “Don’t worry, Damian, it’s a servitor model. It takes -- well, it used to take care of your father but we don’t use it much nowadays.”

“But it is human!”

Bruce hid his face in his hands as Dick unhelpfully continued to laugh next to him. “Damian,” Bruce finally said, “I think it would be best if you came back here now.”

“But there is so much that I have not seen yet and I--”

With a sterner voice: “Damian.”

“Yes, Father.”

“You’re already parenting him!” Dick gushed as Bruce turned off the communication. “See? Now just keep doing that until he’s all grown up.”

“I don’t think that’s all that’s required. I have heard that you have to occasionally feed them as well.”

“Oh, are we back to your terrible cooking? Is this a covert way of asking me to stay here longer?” Dick bounced his legs, bumping them against the table.

Bruce rolled his eyes: “It was not, but if you wish to stay, you certainly can.”

“Nah, you know my work in the village is too important.”

“If they’re bothering you again--”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle--”

“So they are bothering you again. Dammit, Dick, you know I--”

“We agreed that you wouldn’t argue about this with me, so just quit--”

“Am I interrupting something?” Damian’s voice now sounded from the entrance of the room and they both spun around to look at him. He seemed only mildly irritated at being called off of his exploration mission, certainly far from throwing a tantrum like any other child his age might.

“Nope,” Dick chirped, a smile immediately back on his face. “We were just talking about which room you might want to take for yourself.”

He ignored the glare Bruce was sending him and rather none too subtly kicked the man in the shin to make him stop glowering.

With a great deal of effort Bruce unclenched his jaw and turned to his son: “If you choose to stay here, of course. If you don’t want to, Dick can escort you to wherever you wish to go.”

“You are foolish to give me such a choice,” Damian accused them. “Now that I know of this place, what is stopping me from letting everyone know what you are doing?”

“You would only be placing Dick in danger,” Bruce said, crossing his arms. “And what exactly would you achieve with such an action?”

“I could bargain for certain privileges,” Damian explained, “although yes, I cannot be sure to receive anything in return for my information. But if I am to remain here, you must guard this place far more efficiently than you currently do.”

Dick almost leaped from the table in his excitement, nearly mirroring Bruce’s actions of not too long ago. “So you’ll stay,” he asked, reaching for Damian’s head.

Damian evaded him. “Tt, can you not infer the simplest of responses from that or do you need everything spelled out?”

“Damian,” growled Bruce again, although far more exasperated than angry and Dick stifled a chuckle. “We are in hiding here, which means you won’t see anyone else around but us two for a very long time, so I encourage you not to antagonise your only potential partner in this struggle against my tyrannical authority.”

“What tyrannical authority?”

Dick laughed again. “Dami,” he said, smiling even wider at Damian’s cute scrunched up nose at the nickname, “didn’t you know? B practically raised me, or, well, I was raised with him. So you can totally call me uncle, or even better,” and Damian had gone slightly pale at that, “your brother!”

He wasn’t exactly sure what Damian muttered under his breath there, but it didn’t sound very nice, not that he was paying any attention. Instead he was staring at Bruce and the slightest smile on the man’s face, something of a rare sight these days. Or at least something that had been rare until now. Somehow, he already knew just how precious Damian would prove to be to Bruce as well as himself.

You don’t get a new family member so handily delivered to your doorstep just anytime, and this was certainly a gift worth treasuring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, before anyone yells at me about how HEPHAESTUS was the one actually building machines and how that was what the Cauldrons were for -- I know!!  
> But consider this: What was the point of AETHER / POSEIDON then??? I mean, ‘designed for the purpose of detoxifying Earth's atmosphere’ but how if not by using machines? So what, good old HEPHAESTUS just builds all of them and AETHER can calmly sit back and not lift a finger?  
> No, I say, lets make AETHER useful (and yes I did pick it because its one of the few subroutines whose alphas we never hear about, if only for the purpose of hoping to keep this canon compliant for the HZD (although the Forbidden West might just destroy that, but who knows).  
> So making AETHER useful -- forcing it to develop (at least, imagine how they would look like and which functions they would need) the machines it needs to detoxify the atmosphere, for which it might need actual production centers, as pure simulations can be wrong! So let’s say it has a few production centers to test out their machines before putting them in mass production in the Cauldrons.  
> Anyhow and then the Signal happened and HADES and HEPHAESTUS both went apeshit (FW ftw btw (gosh i love all these acronyms together)), and AETHER realised that it would have to produce its birds on its own (not that it really needed to, given the fact that the atmosphere can already sustain human life……. But crazy AI is crazy). So now its making birds right there in the Aviary (i know, super clever name), which means the process is super slow bc it can only make like one at a time, but its not planning to give up any time soon!!


End file.
